Jayhawk Debate Institute Staff

The Jayhawk Debate Institute year after year has one of the finest staff of debate coaches and instructors you will find anywhere in the country. Here is a list of some of the great staff members at the 2012 JDI. Check back soon for new additions as we add to our 2 week staff.

Office Staff
Dr. Scott Harris is the Director of Debate at the University of Kansas. Dr. Harris is the also the Director of the JDI. He has coached numerous nationally competitive teams during his time at KU including the 2009 NDT Champion and several teams to late elimination rouns at the National Debate Tournament, the CEDA National Tournament, and other national and regional tournaments. Dr. Harris won the Northwestern Debate Society Excellence in Coaching Award and the Gene A. Budig Teaching Professorship in the Social and Behavioral Sciences for the 2010-2011 school year.
Kelly Winfrey is one of the Associate Directors of the 2012 JDI. She has been an assistant coach at the University of Kansas since 2007. During that time she has coached numerous teams competing at all levels of competition. Kelly has worked as a lab leader at several camps, and this is her second year in the associate director position. Kelly was a successful high school debater in Missouri at Raymore-Peculiar High School and debated at Emporia State University in college. She plans to finish her Ph.D. in Communication Studies at KU next year.
Natalie Pennington is one of the Associate Directors of the 2012 JDI, and is currently an assistant debate coach at the University of Kansas; she debated in high school for Springfield-Central in Springfield, MO, and in college at Missouri State University. She spent two years as an assistant coaching for Kansas State University where the squad saw success both on the district and national level. She has previously worked at both the UMKC and Kansas State high school summer camps for debate.

Dorm Staff
Daniel Stout debated his high school career at Manhattan High School reaching outrounds of tournaments like Washburn Rural, Lawrence, Wichita East, Hutchinson, and Winfield. Dan went on to debate at Kansas State University where he reached outrounds of the Cross Examination Debate Association National Championship, and was also a National Debate Tournament Qualifier. While in college he worked at camp and individually during the season with multiple two speaker and four speaker champions in Kansas. Daniel has also coached at McPherson High School. Since graduating college Dan went on to coach at Kansas State during graduate school, where they won multiple JV national championships, had NDT qualifiers and CEDA outround participants. Dan went on to be Assistant Director of Debate at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh where they ascended the national rankings with great velocity and now is very excited to be working back in the Kansas City area helping mold the next great debaters out of Kansas.

Four-week policy debate scholars' session: June 24-July 21
TBA

Three-week policy debate: June 24-July 14
Lindsey Shook was an assistant debate coach at the University of Kansas for 5 years, and is currently the head coach for the University of Central Florida. In her time at KU she has coached the 2009 NDT Championship team, the 2010 CEDA semi-finalist team, and the 2008 CEDA National finals team. Lindsey has also coached numerous teams receiving NDT first-round at large bids, invitations to the Dartmouth and Kentucky Round Robins, and champions of several national and regional tournaments. Lindsey has worked with high school students for several years and has coached teams receiving NFL and TOC bids from Oklahoma, Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, and Texas. She has extensive knowledge on debate theory, topicality, and kritik debating. Her teaching also emphasizes argument and judge adaptation.
Mick Souders was an assistant debate coach at the University of Kansas for five years and previously coached at Georgia State University and Eastern New Mexico University. He qualified for the National Debate Tournament (NDT) and outrounds at the CEDA National Championship on multiple occasions and was on the first team from Seattle University to qualify the NDT. Mick's past four J(E)DI labs have produced a 5A Kansas State Champion, more than a dozen NFL & CFL qualifiers and elimination round participants, two NFL top ten speakers and three TOC qualifiers.
Sean Kennedy is a highly successful fourth-year debater at the University of Kansas. He won the Wake Forrest 2011 Tournament, was 2nd place at Cal-Fullerton in 2012, was a semi-finalist at the 2011 CEDA National Tournament, has cleared at every major national collegiate tournament, and is the 2008 NJDDT and 2009 Michigan State Freshman-Sophomore national champion. He cleared at the Greenhill, Maine East, Omaha Westside, KCKCC, Glenbrooks, and Iowa Valley high school tournaments, and received 13th speaker at the NFL tournament. He has coached multiple NFL and CFL qualifers for Shawnee Mission East High School.
Joe Koehle is a debate coach for the University of Kansas. Joe has enjoyed success both as a debater and a coach in the 10+ years he's been involved in debate. As a high school debater in Pennsylvania, Joe won top speaker at the state tournament by what is still a record margin. In 2003 he coached a team to both the finals of the CFL and NFL high school national tournaments, and has previously worked at the National Debate Institute at the University of Maryland. As a college debater Joe was a 4 time NDT qualifier, making it to the outrounds three times, and received a first-round at large bid to the NDT (ranking 9th in the country) his final year of debate. Since then Joe has coached for the University of West Georgia and Kansas State University, with his teams seeing competitive success at both the NDT and CEDA national tournaments. Mostly recently he helped coach KSU MZ to win CEDA in 2011.
Phil Samuels is currently a debate coach for the University of Kansas. Phil previously worked as the Assistant Director of Debate at the University of Minnesota. Phil has coached successful teams at Minnesota including qualifying teams to the NDT. At the University of Kansas Phil coached the 2008 CEDA Nationals finalist team and the 2009 NDT Champion team. Phil has decades of experience in debate and has worked at numerous camps throughout his long career.
Nick Watts was a very successful debater at the University of Oklahoma, and currently coaches at the college level for Harvard. Nick and his partner won the CEDA National Tournament in both 2009 and 2010.
Mark Wilkins is a 4th year debater at KU. He came from Washburn Rural HS in Topeka, where he currently coaches. As a debater, Mark has cleared at almost every major national tournament, and has advanced to the late elimination rounds at several regional tournaments. In addition, he is the only two-time NJDDT champion known, winning it in both 2008 and 2009. As a coach, Mark has helped several teams qualify to the National Forensics League tournament, and the 2008 Kansas State Champions (GO BLUES!).
Justin Kirk is a debate coach for the University of Kansas. Justin debated for Barbers Hill High School from until 1999, and for the University of Texas at Dallas until 2001. As a debater at UT Dallas, Justin won the JV National Championship in 2001 held at Kansas State University. He worked as a debate coach for UT Dallas from 2004 until 2011, when he entered the graduate program at the University of Kansas. Justin helped to coach UT Dallas to its first top 10 ranking in history, and its first first-round at large bid to the NDT. Justin helped UT Dallas reach the quarterfinals at both the CEDA and NDT national tournaments in 2009.

Two-week policy debate: June 24-July 7
Mike Kearney is an assistant coach for the University of Kansas, received a first-round at large invitation to the National Debate Tournament for Missouri State where he also cleared at every major national collegiate tournament, including reaching quarterfinals at CEDA nationals and earning the 3rd seed at the NDT; qualified to the NDT four times; and earned numerous speaker awards; since, Kearney has coached NDT qualifiers for Missouri State University and several TOC and NFL qualifiers for The Pembroke Hill School and Glenbrook North High School.
Nathan Rodriguez is an assistant coach at the University of Kansas. Born and raised in Lawrence, he won the Kansas state high school tournament as a senior. In his debate career at KU, he reached the quarterfinals of Novice Nationals as a freshman and the quarterfinals of CEDA nationals as a sophomore and later qualified for the National Debate Tournament. This is Nathan's fifth year teaching at the JDI.
Devon Cooper debated in the Baltimore Urban Debate League for 3 ½ years, traditionally, in high school. After graduation he went to the Univ. of Louisville to switch to performance or critical styles of debate dealing with black participation. After two years there he went to Towson to debate with The Great Dayvon Love! where they engaged in more radical black and identity based performative perspectives of debate, eventually winning CEDA in 2008 and a finalist in 2009, obtaining a first round-bid at large and quarters of the NDT. He is now a graduate assistant at CSU Fullerton. Also he has been teaching at debate camps and coaching high school students for 7 years.
David Magariel debated at the University of Kansas for 4 years; reaching the Octofinals of both CEDA Nationals at the NDT. David has gone on to coach teams to the elimination rounds of both national tournaments during his time coaching at the University of Texas at Dallas, KU, and Kansas State. David currently practices law in Kansas City but remains active in the Kansas High School debate circuit through coaching and judging, most recently he helped coach a team that qualified for both CFL and NFL Nationals in 2011. This is David's seventh year at the JDI.
W. James Taylor ("JT") is currently an assistant coach for Kansas State University, and was previously the Assistant Director of Debate for Emporia State University. He debated for 3 years at William Chrisman High School (Independence MO) (Policy and LD). He also debated for 3 years in college at Missouri State University and Truman State University. Has coached college debate for the past 14 years at Truman State University, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and Emporia State University. JT has coached many teams to outrounds of CEDA Nationals and the NDT. James has taught High School Debaters at camps such as the Jayhawk Debate Institute, UMKC's SDI and the Gonzaga Debate Institute. In addition to camps, JT does a considerable amount of research work for handbooks all year for Policy, LD, and Parli.
Alex McVey started his debate career at Olathe East High School in Olathe, Kansas. He then debated for five years at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He was a three time qualifier for the NDT, an NDT double-octafinalist, and a two-time CEDA octafinalist. His senior year, Alex was the top speaker and first team clearing out of the District 3 NDT qualifier tournament. Alex is now completing his Master's Degree in Communication at Baylor, where he helped coach Baylor CM to an NDT quarterfinals appearance last year. Alex is also an assistant debate coach at Midway High School, Waco, TX, and serves on the editorial board of the new debate journal,kdebate (www.kdebate.com).
Heather Woods debated for 5 years at Kansas State University. She currently teaches and coaches for the Glenn R. Capp debate forum at Baylor University. Heather began her debate career as a novice, winning her first tournament and receiving second speaker. From there, she enjoyed competitive success, advancing to elimination rounds at several major national tournaments, including CEDA. Her records include two semi-finalist appearances at regional tournaments her senior year. In addition, Heather has twice been the recipient of the CEDA All-American/Summa Cum Laude Scholar award.
Kurt Fifelski is currently the assistant coach at the University of Central Oklahoma. He has previously worked as a coach at Emporia State, where he debated, and Emporia High. In his four years at Emporia High he coached teams to elimination rounds at CFL and NFL, and worked with a team that won DCI.